


What I Did On My Summer Vacation

by accidentallymelted



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallymelted/pseuds/accidentallymelted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No, seriously,” Paul says, peering out the windows of the rental car. “Are you sure we aren’t lost?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” James says, glancing down at the directions he’s holding. “Take the next exit.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Did On My Summer Vacation

**Author's Note:**

> So [james](http://gilajames.tumblr.com) was doing a reverse prompt meme over on Tumblr, and I got "Paulie/Nealer: This is their vacation to someplace exotic. Paul is both afraid and impressed at James’ choice" and it kinda spiraled out of hand.

“No, seriously,” Paul says, peering out the windows of the rental car. “Are you sure we aren’t lost?”

“Yes,” James says, glancing down at the directions he’s holding. “Take the next exit.”

Paul slants a dubious look across the car at James but he puts on his blinker and takes the next exit.

James’ directions take them through a town that Paul would be hard pressed to classify as “modern.” The streets are largely unpaved and filled alternately with potholes and speedbumps. Paul winces as the undercarriage of the car scrapes against one of the top of one of the bumps and hopes that he gets the deposit back. He shoots a quick glance across the car at James as he remembers how he was talked into this.

_“C’mon, Paulie, it’ll be fun!” James whines. Paul cocks a disbelieving eyebrow at him._

_“A tropical vacation,” he says, voice full of doubt. “James, I get sunburns_ indoors _.” James looks unsure for a moment, then switches back to pleading._

_“I’ll do all the work,” he promises. “All you have to do is show up.”_

_Paul eyes him suspiciously, but he has no defenses where James is concerned. “All right. Where are we going?”_

_James’ face splits apart in a giant grin. “Have you ever heard of Sayulita?”_

In retrospect, trusting James seems to have been a bad decision. Paul’s hands are white-knuckled around the steering wheel as he steers their rental car up the steepest, most terrible road he’s ever been on. James directs them to a turnoff about halfway up the mountain and then up what turns out to be a driveway. There’s a small white house at the top of the driveway and Paul parks out in front of it. James gets out of the car and looks around, beaming.

“We’re here!”

0o0o0o0o0

There is a crab living on the front door frame. When Paul points it out, James snorts and takes a picture to show Geno. “Later,” he explains, and Paul eyes his phone and thinks dire thoughts about the lack of service.

The house is very small - the ground floor is a kitchen and a “living room” that contains two chairs and the smallest television Paul has ever seen. He switches it on and flips through the channels - there are twelve of them, and all of them are in Spanish. He turns it off and follows James up the stairs to inspect the bedrooms.

They play rock, paper, scissors for the master bedroom and James whoops when he wins, turning to flop down on the bed in triumph. He lets out a pained grunt and rolls off the bed, looking at it accusingly. “What the hell?”

Paul gives it a closer look and stares in disbelief. “James, that is a mattress on a slab of concrete,” he says slowly. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” He turns to James and raises an eyebrow. “Where did you find this place?”

James shoots the bed a look of intense betrayal. “A buddy of mine knows the owner.” He gets up off the floor, heading back out of the room and up the stairs, which lead up to the roof. Paul follows him up after checking on the bed in his room, which, yup - same situation. He drops his bag in the room anyway and heads up to the roof.

James is standing over by the edge of the roof, staring off at the Pacific Ocean, one hand shielding his eyes from the setting sun. Paul comes up behind him, intent on asking if maybe he wants to make alternate housing plans for this vacation, and stops dead at the sight in front of him, his breath catching in his throat.

The sun is setting over the Pacific, painting the sky various shades of pink and gold. From the roof of the house the beach is visible, stretching from a thin sliver of sand at the foot of the mountain to their right to the broader public beach down to their left. The ocean winks up at them, shimmering blue and green in the dying daylight, and on all sides they are surrounded by a veritable rainforest of trees, covering the sides of the mountain all the way down to the beach. The air is full of butterflies darting to and fro and the whole thing looks exactly like a picture from one of those tourist brochures that never live up to their hype.

“Oh,” he says, and winces a little at how inane he sounds. James turns to him with a grin almost as bright as the sun over the ocean.

“Great, isn’t it?” he says, and Paul mentally resigns himself to sleeping on the terrible bed for at least one night. He’s never been able to resist that smile.

0o0o0o0o0

The next morning, Paul jumps out of bed when he hears a blood-curdling scream. He runs into James’ room, where the scream came from, and stops dead, looking around for the problem.

James is in the shower, flattened against the back wall. “Paulie,” he says, his eyes wide and shocked. “What are you doing?”

“You screamed,” Paul says, looking around the room again. “What happened?”

“There was - something,” James says evasively. “It’s gone now, you can go, I promise I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Paul asks, and James gestures impatiently at him.

“I’m positive, now will you _get out?_ ” James asks, slowly turning red. Paul lingers for a moment longer, giving him a once-over just for the hell of it.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before, Jimmy,” he says, winking, before turning and heading down to the kitchen to start breakfast. He thinks he hears James say something behind him but the noise of the shower drowns him out.

When James stumbles down to the kitchen, hair still wet and curling from the shower, he makes a beeline for the coffee pot and seems confused to find it empty. “Paulie, where’s the coffee?” he says plaintively. Paul flips pancakes onto a plate and snorts.

“Can’t drink the water here, James, remember?” he says. “We’ll have to stop by the grocery store on our way to the beach this morning. The pantry had enough supplies for pancakes, but no bottled water,” he says, grabbing a plate of pancakes and setting them down next to James at the table. “Eat up.”

0o0o0o0o0

They end up walking down to the beach, since there’s a path out behind their house that leads straight down the mountain. James is still sulking about the lack of coffee and Paul just reminds him that he planned the whole thing, and must have forgotten to add “bottled water” to the grocery list he had given to the people who stocked the pantry. “So it’s your own fault,” he says, keeping his eyes on the path in front of him, which is getting very steep very fast.

“Yeah, but Paulie,” James says, and then “Ouch!” as he stumbles off the path and almost trips and falls down the hill. Paul lunges and barely manages to catch him in time.

“Watch where you’re going!” he says, and James blinks up at him.

“Yeah, fine,” he says, and Paul lets him go, suspicious of such easy compliance. But James just turns back to the path, picking his way downward, so Paul shrugs and follows him down.

There’s a little grocery store just across from where their path comes out by the beach, so Paul heads in and buys a dozen bottles of water. The little old lady sitting behind the counter speaks little to no English and Paul hasn’t taken Spanish since he passed the one year they required in high school by the skin of his teeth, but they somehow manage to get by. When he comes out of the store he finds James bent over and petting a dog. Paul frowns, looking around for the dog’s owner, and then notices the lack of a collar.

“Hey there,” James croons to the dog. “You’re a nice doggy, aren’t you? Who do you belong to?”

“Leave the nice doggy be, James,” Paul says. James straightens up and frowns at him.

“Paulie,” he says, but Paul cuts him off by shoving a bag full of water bottles at him.

“He’s a stray,” he says, heading off towards the beach. James follows, still frowning.

“But,” he starts, and then both of them come to a stop, boggling.

The public beach is absolutely swarming with stray dogs. Dogs of every shape and kind mill about the beach, cozying up to beachgoers and people patronizing the beachside restaurants alike. All of them are so thin you can almost count their ribs and their friendliness has an air of desperation about it.

“You are never allowed to tell Geno this exists,” Paul says, after a moment for both of them to take in the sight. James nods fervently.

0o0o0o0o0

James is still laughing as they begin the climb back up to the house. “Your _face_ , Paulie,” he gasps, clutching at his sides. Paul scowls a little, but has to admit that it was pretty funny.

“You were the one who decided we should take surfing lessons,” he says, and James waves it off, laughing.

“But I actually managed to stand up on my waves after a while,” he says. “I’m not the one who kept falling off my board.”

Paul has to admit that this is fair. He really didn’t ever manage to get the hang of surfing, while James did seem to have figured it out after a while. He doesn’t have to admit any such thing out loud, however, and he quickly changes the subject.

“Why were you screaming in the shower this morning?”

That shuts James up quickly, and Paul turns to look at him. “Nothing,” he says, and Paul raises an eyebrow.

“That was not _nothing_ ,” he disagrees. “C’mon, what was it?”

It takes the rest of the climb back up to the house, but James finally capitulates. “Fine! If you _must_ know, a moth flew into the shower with me, and it startled me.”

Paul stares at him incredulously as he unlocks the door to the house. “A _moth_ ,” he repeats, and James folds his arms over his chest.

“Yes, Paulie, a _moth_ ,” he says. “It was huge and looked kind of like a bat, okay? And I freaked out.”

“A _moth_ ,” Paul says to himself, grinning as he opens up the door to the house, only to let out an undignified yelp as something huge and brown flies out into his face. James yells and ducks as the _moth Jesus Christ that thing is huge_ flies past him and down the driveway. They both straighten up slowly, and Paul turns to James.

“You are forgiven for screaming in the shower,” he says solemnly, and James nods, wide-eyed.

0o0o0o0o0

Thunder wakes Paul up in the middle of the night for the second night in a row and he groans and rolls over, burying his head in his pillow. It’s difficult enough to get to sleep on the terrible bed - it’s just not fair that he’s being woken up in the middle of the night, too. After a few minutes, he hears his door open and rolls over to squint at the doorway.

“Paulie?”

“What, James,” he sighs, not fully awake.

“My room is leaking, can I sleep in here with you?”

“Your room is,” Paul starts, but he doesn’t have enough energy to finish that thought. “Sure.” He rolls over to make room for James and feels him climb into the bed.

“Thanks, Paulie. Good night,” James says quietly.

“Night,” Paul manages. For some reason the presence of James in the bed means that he drifts off easily this time. He makes a mental note to think about that later just before he succumbs to sleep.

0o0o0o0o0

The next morning, the crab from the front door has taken up residence in the kitchen. Well, Paul assumes that it’s the same crab - it could be a completely different one for all he knows. He hopes it’s the same crab, as the possibility that the house is infested with crabs is more than he can take.

James stumbles down a few minutes after the coffee has finished brewing and buries his face in the cup Paul has poured for him. He lifts his head a few minutes later, having basically inhaled the coffee, and shoots Paul a sheepish look.

“Sorry about last night,” he says, and Paul rolls his eyes.

“You don’t snore or kick, anyway,” he says. “Your room was _leaking?”_

James sighs. “I guess it rained really hard last night, or whatever - I woke up and there was something dripping onto my head, and I moved over to get away from it and then something started dripping on my feet.”

Paul shoots James an incredulous look. “Your room was leaking,” he says flatly. James groans and buries his head in his hands.

“I _know_ ,” he says. “I’m starting to think we should just pack it in and head to a hotel.”

“You think,” Paul says, as dry as he can. “James, there is a crab in the kitchen. There were three geckos on my bathroom mirror when I woke up this morning, a _moth_ in your bathroom yesterday, and the roof leaks. Yes, I think we should go to a hotel.”

James gives him his best hangdog look. “I’m sorry,” he says meekly, and Paul softens slightly.

“You didn’t know,” he says magnanimously. “Let’s pack up and go to the beach - we can find a hotel this afternoon.”

“Okay,” James says, standing up and making his way out of the kitchen.

0o0o0o0o0

“Is that a horse?”

“Eyes back on the map, James.”

“No, seriously, that is a horse just wandering around the roads. It’s a stray horse! Paulie, we have to stop.”

“I sincerely doubt that it is a stray horse, James. Focus. Hotels?”

0o0o0o0o0

Paul is unpacking for both of them while James is out searching the hotel for the ice machine. He tugs out James’ shaving kit and a piece of paper that had been stuck to the back of the kit falls to the ground. Paul picks it up and is about to return it to the bag when his name catches his eye.

_Ideas for Wooing Paulie_ , the list reads, and Paul chokes on air.

_~~1\. Pirates game?~~ _

_~~2\. Cook him dinner~~ _

_3\. Tropical Vacation?_

“I found it!” James bursts through the door holding the ice bucket aloft triumphantly. “Uh,” he says, stopping short at the sight of Paul with the list in his hand.

“You never cooked me dinner,” is the first thing Paul can think of to say, and all the color drains out of James’ face.

“Didn’t want to poison you,” he says finally, after a few moments of awkward silence. “Thought this was a better idea, probably.” Paul raises both eyebrows at him and he ducks his head. “It _was_ a good idea,” he mutters.

“Poor execution, though,” Paul observes. His heart is beating rapidly and there’s a faint buzzing in his ears. “You’re lucky I think it’s cute.”

James ducks his head further, and then jerks his head up as Paul’s words sink in.

“You think it’s cute?” he asks, a befuddled expression on his face, and Paul sighs.

“Yes, God help me,” he says, and then James drops the ice bucket and throws himself across the room at Paul, who barely manages to get his arms up in time to catch him.

Their first kiss is awkward - James is so enthusiastic that he ends up mostly missing Paul’s mouth, and Paul’s nose is smashed awkwardly into James’ cheek. They manage to straighten it out after a moment, though, and a warm feeling uncurls in Paul’s chest.

“I’ve been wanting to do that _forever_ ,” James says when they pull apart, and Paul can feel his eyes crinkling as he smiles at James.

“Feel free to kiss me anytime,” he says generously, before leaning in again to see if James’ smile tastes as sweet as it looks.

0o0o0o0o0

“How was vacation?” Geno asks, on the first day of training camp. Paul meets James’ eyes across the room and James starts cracking up.

“It wasn’t _entirely_ terrible,” Paul says, deadpan. “But I get to pick the trip next time.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Major thanks to [coinin](http://coinin.tumblr.com), [desharbaby](http://desharbaby.tumblr.com), and [bropunzeling](http://bropunzeling.tumblr.com) for looking this over and making it 150% better! Not even their combined efforts could make it less ridiculous and self-indulgent though. Confession time: Sayulita, Mexico is a totally real place. I have been there, and James and Paul's experiences are pulled extensively from the family vacation we took there when I was 13 (My mother will _kill_ me if she finds out I've been telling the moth story again, so we're going to keep it between us, okay? Okay). This is not to say that it wasn't a great vacation: to my 13 year old self, the only one on the trip who actually spoke Spanish, it was the best trip ever. And yes, the view really is that good.
> 
> Standard disclaimer applies - I own nothing, I make no money, nothing is true, etc, etc. I can also be found at [accidentallymelted](http://accidentallymelted.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, where I reblog a lot of random things and sometimes post writing updates, fic snippets or requests for prompts. Feel free to come say hi!


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